Thursday, July 14, 2011

Only One Life

The other day I was driving with the family I nanny for and we were very nearly hit head on by a truck at an intersection. It was coming straight towards us, if it had it us the mother and I who were sitting in the front seats would probably have died. Thankfully the Lord caused her to swerve to the side at just the right moment so that we were spared.
After this incident I started getting a lot of those thoughts about life and death. I thought "What if I had died? How would people remember me? What would they say in my eulogy?"
It's a very surreal thing, thinking about your own funeral. Everyone wants to be missed. To have made their mark on the world so much that when they're gone, people notice.
For me, I want people to look back and see a woman who lived her life fully for God. I want them to say I was filled with Him and His Spirit. I want them to say I helped everyone I could and showed Christ's love to all. My mom has a plaque on our kitchen wall that reads "Only one life twill soon be past only what's done for Christ will last!"
It's so true! You can have all the riches in the world during your life, everything you could every want, but if you have not lived for Christ it means nothing.
Instead of trying to better ourselves in the world's standards we should seek to further God's kingdom. A life lived for God will not be wasted or done in vain.
I'm reminded of those verses in James 4:13 Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”—14 yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes.15 Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” ESV